


I Am A Kettle

by tongari



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tongari/pseuds/tongari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adventures of Matsunaga Hisahide's tea-kettle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am A Kettle

I am a kettle. Every morning, I pour out last night's memories, and boil water for my master's tea. Every evening, I pour out today's memories, and boil water for my master's tea. This is not a sad thing. I am a kettle, and kettles boil water. I may not remember what happens around me, but some things I know to be true.

*

 

One morning, as I was being washed in the courtyard of the fortress my master lived in, there was a great commotion outside the fortress walls. Everyone ran away, and I was left alone.

Now, if the commotion had happened before I had been cleaned, I suppose I would have remembered seeing my master enjoying his tea the night before, and felt compelled to remain where I was no matter what, so that he would find me again. But everyone had run away immediately after rinsing me out, so I didn't remember anything. I sat in the courtyard, and enjoyed the morning sunshine... It was a beautiful morning, and the sunlight was warm, but it began to get boring after a while. So, I decided to see where everyone had gone.

As I stood up, the gates were thrown open so violently they shattered, and a great number of horses and soldiers ran in. They ran right past me and headed into the yard, towards the main hall. This made the courtyard look uncomfortably crowded, and smell very strongly of horse. I am not opposed to horses, but I am accustomed to and prefer the smell of tea. So I decided to go out, through the open gate.

I walked away from the fortress, down the mountainside, and into the dense forest that shrouded the slopes of the mountain. On my way I saw a river, a badger, a monkey, and many many many trees.

Eventually I came to a clearing with a strange thing in it. An enormous, colourful, snoring vagrant was sleeping here.

The monkey I had seen earlier came over to me and started chattering at me. The vagrant woke up. "What is it, Yumekichi?" he asked. And he looked at me. "Wow," he said. "It's a walking teakettle! Where did you come from?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm a kettle. I don't have anywhere to keep memories. I pour them out so I can hold water, and boil it."

"That's sad," the vagrant said.

"Why is it sad? That's what kettles do."

"Well," the vagrant said, "since you can't remember where you're from, would you like to come home with me for dinner? My auntie is a great cook!"

"It would be a great honour," I said.

So I went home with the vagrant, and met his beautiful and charming auntie, who petted me and cooed at me and let me sit in her lap (before I went off to boil water). And we prepared a massive feast, and I boiled a lot of water; and I forgot about meeting the vagrant in the forest, and the fortress and my master. But I had a great time at the dinner, and sat in everyone's lap (after I had cooled down), and was petted and cooed at and generally made a big fuss of.

"Thank you for all your help," the auntie said. "You did an amazing job!"

"It would be my honour to help again," I said.

"But the next time you boil water, you will forget all about tonight," the auntie said. "You will forget all about us."

"I guess I will," I said. "But I am a kettle. I boil water. I don't remember people. Do people like to be remembered? 

"Kind of," the vagrant said. "I know that it really makes people sad to be forgotten. 

"I'll try to remember that," I said.

From then on the vagrant's family would no longer use me, because it made them sad to think that the next time I boiled water, I would forget them. So the vagrant took me to see his old friend. 

"My friend likes tea," the vagrant said. "You will definitely be able to perform a great service to him!" 

"But this is the same thing as having me boil water for you," I said. "I will forget you." 

"That's all right," the vagrant said, with a sad smile. "My friend has also forgotten me."

Because he had been so kind to me, I tried really, really hard to hang on to the tiniest memory of the vagrant. I did not completely pour out my memories, and did not completely fill myself with water... But water expands when it is heated, and turns into steam. And steam is impatient, and expansive, and merciless. As hard as I tried, I could not retain my memories of the vagrant; they were driven out completely by the steam.

* 

The master of this house liked tea, so once again (although I didn't know this), I returned to my usual cycle. Pour out last night's memories to boil water; pour out today's memories to boil water again. Perhaps this went on for days, or months, or years.

Eventually, though, there came the night when someone broke into the house, saw me, looked at me thoughtfully, and then put me into his bag together with the other things he had stolen. He took me back to his master - an old, ailing, sorry-looking man. But when the old man saw me, he perked up tremendously.

"What a beautiful kettle!" the old man said. "It's too beautiful to use. Put it on the shelf, for me to look at."

Thus I came to remember, for a while, the house of the old man, and his servant, the thief who had stolen me.

The thief tended to the old man patiently; quietly selling off his stolen goods, paying off bills, supervising clean-ups and meals; changing the old man's compresses when he had a fever, giving his aching shoulders a massage, and listening to him. The old man spoke often, whining about his ailments, about the sorry state of his affairs; reminiscing on his glorious past, his beloved family, his magnificent achievements. The thief never spoke a word.

There came a time when the thief was absent for days. The old man was livid. 

"Employ a man for years and he deserts you at the drop of a pin! This cruel world!"

But he took me down from the shelf and cried over me and eventually hugged me to sleep.

I suppose the old man also missed the thief, but he wasn't used to saying such things. I tried to comfort him, but I am a kettle, and kettles don't know how to comfort people.

The thief came back in the middle of the night and gently took me from his master, who snored and rolled over, grumbling. The thief sighed. He bent down and put a raven-black feather in his master's hand, together with a small, heavy bag that clinked, as if with coins. Then he was off again, with me in his bag, exactly as he had stolen me.

"He was very upset when you left," I said. "Why don't you ever tell him where you are going?"

The thief said nothing, but hung his head a little lower as he flew over the roofs and then up into the sky in a flurry of black feathers. It was beautiful, up in the clouds. I felt a little closer to the stars.

"If you sell me, the old man will scold you," I said.

The thief sighed, and I felt his shoulders shrug. 

*

We landed, finally, in the courtyard of a fortress up in the mountains, surrounded by a dense forest.

"You could have just used the gate," the lord of the fortress said. "We just had it repaired."

The thief handed me over to him.

"Wonderful," the lord of the fortress said. "You're amazing at tracking things down. I would have been so sad to have lost this one forever. You didn't steal it from me in the first place, did you?" 

The thief shook his head emphatically.

After he had gone, the lord of the fortress placed me on his table, and joyfully requested a fresh pot of tea. Thus it was that I lost my memories of the old man and the thief. But as I was cooling down, the lord of the fortress drank his tea and said to me, "Welcome back and well done, Hiragumo," and I felt pleased.

I would forget my master's praise in the morning, and I would even forget my master. But I knew now that my master would never forget  _me_.


End file.
